Melfi "firing" Tony. She can tell her colleagues that she fired/quit/ sent her patient off. But she could also take him back, if he comes back in a way that she feels they can actually move forward. If Tony can prove to her that she is right that he is not a sociopath who cannot be helped, then pushing the patient/therapist relationship to the breaking point should resolve that.

Melfi will no longer be a passive influence.

Tony has fired her a lot of times, only to come back.

Now Jennifer takes the hard line, throws his arguements in his face, stands up to him physically, and boots him. Tough love.

Tony can come back honest or not at all.

Speaking of bootings. AJ may have had it after years of his father's physical abuse. For all of these years AJ has responded to it by repressing more and more. He is so passive he can hardly move. Even with Blanca, he is out of touch with her feelings, and yet when he lays it all on the line with her, she cuts him off. She sees what he doesn't and she does not want to be sucked in. AJ takes it all very personally.

He lays in bed, he fails to thrive, he doesn't respond, he can't eat or think. He shuts down in every possible way.

The things that gave him a sense of power in his own life also failed him. His clubbing days only came down to the fact that his buddies cared about him because of his name and how they could use it. Same with the two Jasons. Blanca didn't like the life that she saw and left.

AJ could strike back at his father for all of those years of living in his shadow and under his foot. Tony kicking at him as he tried to secure the Christmas tree at the end of 6a, while Carmela expounded on how pitiful it was that people who didn't have children sent Christmas cards with pictures of their dogs. One couldn't help but feel that the dogs were treated better than Tony's child, who was being "kicked like a dog".

Tony and Carmela sending multiple mixed messages about what he should do, until he can't think at all how to figure out his own life or please his parents. There have just been too many examples over the years to mention. Military school was probably a good example. Also Carmela sleeping with the guidance counselor, then trying to use that to have the counselor help AJ, then threatening the counselor with the image of Tony.

The power AJ found in being depressed and suicidal. Now that is not working for him because of the "family" emergency. They are about to be killed and he wants to draw attention to himself. It had been working for him. He seems shocked when his father's reaction indicates that won't work under the current circumstances.

AJ is so far out of the loop that he cannot see his real life. He just goes for what seems to work for him at the moment. He has no sense of self. And in a very real sense, his parents put him in that position. While they tried to force him into an academic/achievement mode, he was never sure who he was. All of his confirmations about who he is have come from outside of himself.

When he was a little boy, a kid gave up fighting with him because his father feared Tony. Tony hovers over his entire life without every being really there for him. Tony is himself conflicted over whether he wants his son to admire him and follow in his track, or go in a different direction, the direction Carm has been trying to head him in for years.

I find myself wondering if the A3 song does not refer to AJ instead of Tony.

Wow! I thought I was the only one. I literally was having a physiological reaction to that entire sow. My body shook and I was cold sweating! Wow. Never has any movie or TV show ever done that. I thought any moment, the TV set would blow from all the tension in that episode. Bravo!!!!!!Anyone notice Meadow and the OJ, Bobby and all the orange packages in the hobby shop.................... Funny the orange color resemblems the color of a Buddhist Monks robe as well. What is so special about orange?

For me, this episode is the most obvious 10 IMO. It's just so good! There isn't a dull moment here. It starts strong and ends strong and hardly lets up along the way. Bobby Bacala's whacking is one of my favorite and least favorite scenes in the entire series. Least favorite because he's a favorite character of mine, but it's also a favorite scene of mine since it's so well done. The trains, the reflections of the gunmen in the mirror, etc. It's such an intense scene. Then, of course, I remember watching this episode for the first time seeing Silvio get shot and thinking NOOOOO! I'm glad they didn't definitively kill him even though they mention his condition wasn't good at all. This episode was the perfect build up to the finale.

I don't know if this has been mentioned previously, but I think at this point Tony is weakened financially.

One after the other, his best "earners" die, along with some lesser earners. Not many men left in the Soprano crew. Carmella kept the spec house profits for herself. Tony had a bout of bad gambling, and had to repay Hesh with funds from offshore accounts.

When he was seen emptying the pool because it costs too much too heat, just like Carmella had to do when she was living alone, it drove the point home that Tony was significantly weakened in liquid assets. At that same moment, Janice drops by to ask him to support Junior , and he sarcastically gives her twenty bucks. Again, driving that point home.

One thing I did not understand, Tony Soprano instructs Silvio to call Annalisa for the Neapolitan murderers who have to kill Phil Leotardo, but since Tony is the boss does not have to be himself talking to Annalisa, because when he must kill Rusty Millo, Tony tells Christopher To have called in person Anna